February
1, 2002
MHC
Alumna Named President of Bates College
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Elaine
Tuttle Hansen '69 is the new president-elect of Bates College.
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A scholar specializing
in feminist literary theory, Elaine Tuttle Hansen '69, provost
and professor of English at Haverford College, was named the seventh
president of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, January 26. She
will assume office July 1, succeeding retiring president Donald
W. Harward, who served for thirteen years as Bates's president.
Hansen will be the college's first woman president.
Says Hansen, "My
intellectual journey toward the presidency of Bates began at Mount
Holyoke, where I was encouraged always to aspire to the next level.
Mount Holyoke gave me the skills to be a productive scholar and
an effective administrator and instilled in me a commitment to
academic excellence. In my new position, I will work diligently
to sustain and extend the liberal arts tradition that lies at
the heart of both Bates and Mount Holyoke, and to which I have
devoted most of my adult life. And when people ask me how it feels
to be the first woman president of Bates, I will remind them that
I owe this opportunity to the efforts and achievements of others:
all my mentors and friends at Mount Holyoke; feminists of the
last three decades, who worked for the second great wave of social
reform in this country; and the founders of Bates, who laid the
groundwork of an egalitarian institution in 1855 by opening a
college for men and women of all racial and ethnic backgrounds."
"Dr. Hansen is
first and foremost an educator who throughout a distinguished
career has demonstrated her deep understanding and commitment
to liberal arts education and the important role it plays in our
society," said Burton M. Harris, chair of Bates's board of
trustees. "Equally important, [she] has the leadership qualities
and communication skills that will enable her to lead Bates on
its continuing path to greater excellence in fulfilling its mission."
"This is great
news for Bates and great news for Mount Holyoke," said MHC
Acting President Beverly Daniel Tatum. "In choosing Elaine
Hansen, Bates has selected a woman who will uphold its tradition
of fine education in the liberal arts." Sally J. Lemaire,
executive director of the Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Association,
said, "The Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association values Elaine's
commitment to liberal arts education, intellectual pursuits, diversity,
and academic excellence. We believe she will make an outstanding
college president. Her Mount Holyoke sisters are very proud."
Tuttle is the author
of many articles and several books on issues of motherhood, gender
and identity, Chaucer, and Old English verse, including The
Solomon Complex: Reading Wisdom in Old English Poetry (1988),
Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender (1992), and Mother
Without Child: Contemporary Fiction and the Crisis of Motherhood
(1997). She received a bachelor's degree in English, magna cum
laude, from Mount Holyoke in 1969 and was elected to Phi Beta
Kappa. She went on to earn a master's degree from the University
of Minnesota in 1972 and a doctorate at the University of Washington
in 1975, both in English literature.
Provost and chief
academic officer of Haverford since 1995, Hansen chairs that college's
planning committee and is responsible for the faculty and curriculum,
as well as academic and instructional support services. Previously,
she served as chair of the English department. Haverford President
Thomas M. Tritton said Hansen is "uniformly admired and respected
at Haverford. . . . Elaine is smart, yet welcoming of diverse
viewpoints; elegant, yet approachable; decisive, yet fair. While
she will have many ideas of what she wants to accomplish, building
and sustaining Bates's academic excellence will undoubtedly be
her highest priority." Before coming to Haverford in 1980,
Hansen was an associate editor of the Middle English Dictionary
at the University of Michigan and taught at Hamilton College.
Hansen is married
to Stanley Hansen, a speech pathologist. They have two daughters,
fourteen-year-old Isla and nineteen-year-old Emma, who is a student
at Macalester College. Bates, which was founded in 1855 and has
about 1,700 undergraduates, is among the most highly selective
liberal arts colleges in the country.
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